The Wall of Winnipeg and Me (22 page)

For one moment, I thought about picking up my suitcase and throwing it at him. Immature, sure. Unnecessary, yes. But it would have made me feel better. Instead, I counted to seven, and while looking at the stairs, I said to him, “I do understand, Aiden. I get it. Your job is the most important thing in your life and I’m fully aware of how much Leslie means to you. I know that, and I’ve always known that.”

“Yet you’re still mad.”

There wasn’t a point in even lying, was there? Setting my luggage on the stair ahead of me, I turned back around to face that dark head of hair and tanned face I’d seen more of when I worked for him than I did now that I lived with him. “I’m not mad, Aiden. I’m just… look, I’m in a terrible mood. Maybe now isn’t the time to talk, all right?”

“No.” His back straightened and he took his hand off the handrail. “I stayed to watch footage with the staff and see Les,” he stated, a furrow between his eyebrows.

“I understand why you stayed. I’m not telling you I don’t. I’m frustrated over this entire fucking useless weekend, and I don’t want to take it out on you.” That was a lie. I sort of did. “Can we please stop talking about this?”

I knew what his reply was going to be before it came out of his mouth:
nope
. He didn’t fail me. “I didn’t do anything for you to be mad over.”

Heaven help me.
Heaven fucking help me
. My fingers went up to press over the top of my eyebrows, as if that would keep my headache at bay. I hissed, “Aiden, just let it go.”

The man never let anything go? Why would this moment be any different? “No. I want to talk about it. I didn’t go with you to your mom’s house. I’ll go next time.”

The problem with some people was that they didn’t understand the principle of things. The other thing with people was that some guys didn’t understand when to let shit go, so they kept pushing and pushing and pushing until you just said “fuck it.” That was exactly what Aiden did to me then. The pain in my head got even worse. “I invited you so you could meet my mom and my foster parents. And stupid me, I got disappointed when you bailed on me at the last freaking moment.”

In hindsight, that sounded a lot more melodramatic than it needed to.

The fact that my mom had knowingly lied to me had been bad enough. Susie going into psycho mode had definitely made things worse. Diana’s lies only magnified every ruthless, hurt emotion in me, but I didn’t tell him any of that. Every piece of anger in me had been sprouted from the seeds Aiden’s absence had left.

“I had to,” he stated in that cool, crisp tone that said he definitely didn’t understand what I was so upset about it.

Sighing, I pulled my hand away from my face and shook it off. “Forget it, Aiden.”

“I don’t understand why you’re so pissed off,” he snapped.

“Because! I thought we were getting to be friends, and you couldn’t even bother to remember to tell me until the last minute you weren’t going with me. Do you have any idea how unimportant that makes me feel?” I snapped back.

Some strange emotion flickered in his dark eyes, the long length of his face loosening for a second before the normal, bland expression took over his face. “I stayed for a good reason.”

“I get it. I know your priorities. I know where we stand. I know what this is and what it isn’t. I’ll try to adjust my expectations from now on,” I cut him off, completely over this stupid conversation.

Aiden’s dark pink mouth had been open, but at my comment, he slammed it closed. His forehead creased, and that pouty mouth that belonged on a woman with some kind of cosmetic enhancement, went tight at the corners. He blinked those long brown eyelashes as his forehead scrunched.

He was at a loss of words.

Words that could have gone along the lines of “We are friends” or “I’m sorry.” Instead, I got nothing. No excuse, no promise,
nada.

So frustrated—so
freaking
frustrated—I held back the eye roll tempting me by the second and plastered a tight, completely fake smile on my face. “I’m really tired.” And my arm hurt. “Good night.”

Two steps up the staircase later, I heard, “It isn’t that big of a deal.”

Why? Why me? Why couldn’t he just drop this before I decided to slit his throat in his sleep? “Forget I even said anything,” I tossed over my shoulder for his sake and mine. God, I was being bitchy, but I couldn’t find it in me to care too much.

Aiden snickered loudly. “I don’t understand why you think it’s such a big deal. I’m not asking you to pay me back for the airline ticket or the rental car. I’m sure I can meet your family another day. It isn’t like we don’t have time. We’ve got five years, Vanessa. I don’t want to spend them with you being pissed at me the entire time. You knew what you were getting yourself into.”

“Trust me, I haven’t forgotten for a second how long we’re in this for.” I pulled my suitcase up another step angrily.

When I didn’t say anything else, he took it upon himself to continue. “What the hell is your problem?”

I turned completely around to face him, my hands going instinctively to my hips. “I already told you what my problem is. I’m in a shit mood and you left me hanging, and that bothers me way more than it should, I know that. But I know I should have known better.”

He scoffed. He scoffed so hard his nostrils flared and he shook his head, his eyes going everywhere except at me. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

I felt my blood rush away from my face, but I’d be damned if I walked back up to my room now. Sometimes facial features said so much more than words could, and I hoped the smart-ass smile I was giving him said exactly what I wanted it to say.
Fuck you
.

A sharp noise that could have been mistaken for a bitter laugh exploded out of Aiden’s mouth. “I’m not paying off your loans and buying you a house to have to put up with this, Van. If I wanted someone to nag at me, I would have gotten a real wife.”

Oh… hell… no.

Every drop of blood in my upper body went south. Ugly, hurtful words pinched my throat and I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t think. I couldn’t even breathe.

I didn’t have to take this shit.

Standing there on the step, I nodded, my hands shaking. “You know what? You’re right. You’re completely right. I’m sorry I opened my fucking mouth. I’m sorry I gave a shit and started looking forward to you coming along with me.” And I was sorry I was blaming him for starting off a chain of events that spiraled downhill.

I really was being a wee bit of an asshole, but I couldn’t muster up enough fucks to give in that moment to let the situation go.

Clenching my hands together, I jogged up the steps with my suitcase in my bad hand and slammed the door shut behind me once I was in the room. I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, staring around me at what suddenly felt like a five-year prison. If we weren’t already “married,” I’d pack my stuff up and leave.

But I’d signed the papers and made a promise to him.
Five years
.
I won’t go anywhere until you’re a resident, I promise.

That was the difference between Aiden and me though.

I actually kept my word.

Dropping my bag on the floor, I scrubbed at my cheeks with my hands, trying to calm down. My eyes felt oddly dry. This hole the size of Crater Lake took residence where the important parts of my soul used to be. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to fucking cry.

I bent down to unzip my suitcase and took all the clothing out to wash later when The Wall of Asswipe wasn’t hanging around. That knot in my throat I’d gotten back at Diana’s seemed to swell back to its original size. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t going to cry even if the urge to was more overwhelming than it had ever been.

I was in the middle of sliding my suitcase beneath the bed a little more forcefully than was necessary when a knock rapped at my door, two taps too low to be Aiden.

Controlling the anger and the not-tears creeping around in my eyeballs, I called out, “Yes?”

“Van.” It was Zac.

“Yes?”

“Can I come in?”

Taking off my glasses, I rubbed at my eyebrow bone for a moment with the meaty part of my palm and let out a shuddering breath. “Of course. Come in.”

Sure enough, Zac opened the door and slid inside my room, a funny, wary smile on his face as he closed it behind him. “Hi, darlin’,” he said in an almost delicate voice.

I gave him an equally wary smile, trying to suppress my aggravation with the guy downstairs, with my family back in El Paso, and the idiot known as my best friend in Forth Worth. I played with the sleeve of my hoodie again to make sure it was down to my wrist. “Hey.”

“I like your hair.”

“Thanks.” I probably would have liked the teal color a lot more than I did, in any other circumstance, but I was so pissed and disheartened, I couldn’t find it in me to care my hair was now like something straight out of Candyland.

“You all right?” he asked, moving to take a seat on the edge of my bed just a couple feet away from where I was kneeling.

Reluctantly, I kicked my luggage the rest of the way under the bed frame and got to my feet. “Yeah.”

“You sure?”

Shit. “You heard all that, huh?”

“I heard,” he confirmed with a blink of those wonderful blue eyes.

Of course he had. I’d been pretty much yelling toward the end. “He gets on my nerves so easily sometimes, I don’t understand.” I took a seat right next to him with a sigh.

“I know.”

“He doesn’t care about anyone but himself.”

“I know.”

“Then he gets mad when someone is disappointed in him,” I grumbled at the floor.

“I know,” Zac agreed again.

“I didn’t beg him to go with me. I just mentioned it. I would have been fine if he’d said he was too busy.”

“I know.”

“Why is he such a pain in the ass?”

In my peripheral vision, Zac held out his hands. “The world will never know, darlin’.”

I snorted and shifted my gaze over to him finally. “No, probably not.” I nudged his elbow. “You wouldn’t have backed out on me, would you?”

“No way.” He nudged me back with his thigh, drawing my attention down to the reindeer print pajamas he had on. “Bad trip home?”

I hadn’t told him much about my family situation in the time we’d known each other. Besides a few casual mentions of how I wasn’t close to my mom, how much of a pain in the ass my sisters were, and possibly bringing up my foster parents in passing once or twice, I’d never gone into too much detail with Zac. But he knew enough.

Drawing my gaze up, it settled on the stubble he’d let himself grow out over the course of some time; he usually shaved that baby face every day. Light blue circles were nestled under his eyes and his cheeks looked hollower than they had two weeks ago, making me feel like a self-centered asshole. Some people had real things to worry about, and here I was losing it over people who didn’t care about me.

“Yes.” That was an understatement. I shook my head, bottling up the argument with Susie and her husband for the time being. “It sucked. A lot.”

Zac fed me a pity smile that I ate up. “Why do you think I haven’t gone back home?”

Ahh, hell. “I hear ya.” Tilting my head to look at him, I took him in. “I’ve been worried about you, you know.”

He made a dismissive noise in his throat. “I’ll be fine.”

How many times had I not said those exact same words to myself when it felt like the world was falling apart on me? Reaching over, I put my hand on his thigh. “Of course you’re going to be, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to worry or wonder what you’re going to do.”

That sandy head dropped back and his sigh seemed to fill my room. “I don’t fucking know, Vanny,” he admitted to me in a tired voice. “I have no idea what I’m going to do.”

Maybe I couldn’t fix the situations with Aiden, my sister, and Diana, but I could try to help Zac as much as possible now that he finally wanted to talk about it. “Do you still want to play?”

He chuffed. “Of course.”

That was easy enough. “Then you know what you’re going to do. You’re going to start training again, and you’re going to get your agent to find you another team to join. Maybe not this season, but at least next. No if, ands, or buts about it. Don’t give yourself another option,” I told him. “What about that?”

Zac’s sock-covered toes tapped against the floor and the sound of his steady puffing told me he was there. His hand came to rest over mine and I elongated my fingers upward to link through his.

“Maybe things won’t work out, but maybe they will. You’ll never know unless you try, and if you don’t try, you’ll probably end up an old geezer wondering what would have happened if you hadn’t given up,” I warned him before letting go of his hand and reaching around to give him a one-armed hug.

That had him snickering.

“You’re okay on money?” I wasn’t rich by some standards, but I had my savings still, and I was proud of how much I’d set aside all on my own.

“I’m okay,” he assured me.

I figured he was. He wasn’t extravagant. “If you decide to stay, I’ll even let you run this marathon in February with me if you’re a good boy,” I added, pulling him into my side for another side hug.

His back stiffened. “You’re going to run a marathon?”

“Why do you think I’ve been running?”

“Because you’re bored?”

I’d done more research on the training process that was suggested for people running their first marathon, and I couldn’t see anyone doing it because they were bored. “No. I just want to do it. I haven’t had time to train for one before, and I like the idea of it being a challenge.” Plus, I wanted to prove something to myself. Do something for my poor knee. I wanted to remind it that it could do whatever it wanted to. That it wasn’t anyone’s bitch.

I wanted to know that nothing was impossible and give my sister a big fuck you for what she had done to me.

I leaned into his side and let out a shaky breath, suddenly feeling overwhelmed over the entire weekend. “Are you in or what?”

The long Texan let out a deep sigh.

“What? You’re going to be a loser and back out?”

His face angled slightly toward me. The corner of his mouth hooking up. “What do I get out of it?”